Universities Face Congressional Inquiry and Angry Donors Over Handling of Antise

[simpleSimon]

Universities Face Congressional Inquiry and Angry Donors Over Handling of Antisemitism
By Alan Blinder, Anemona Hartocollis and Stephanie Saul

Harvard, M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday faced threats from donors, demands that their presidents resign and a congressional investigation as repercussions mounted over the universities' responses to antisemitism on campus.

At Penn, university trustees discussed the future of Elizabeth Magill, its president, whose congressional testimony on Tuesday set off a furor when she dodged the question of whether she would discipline students for calling for the genocide of Jews.

Her answers and similar comments by Claudine Gay of Harvard and Sally Kornbluth of M.I.T. at a House committee meeting set off accusations that they were doing little to protect their own students. All three said they had taken action against antisemitism, but critics argued they had not done enough or were even fostering antisemitism on their campuses.

In response, a House committee opened an investigation into the three institutions as its chairwoman criticized the schools for failing to tackle the "rampant antisemitism" on their campuses after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza.

Representative Virginia Foxx, the North Carolina Republican who leads the Committee on Education and the Workforce, said the inquiry would examine "the learning environments" at Harvard, M.I.T. and Penn, as well as disciplinary procedures. She warned that the panel would "not hesitate" to issue subpoenas.

"The disgusting targeting and harassment of Jewish students is not limited to these institutions, and other universities should expect investigations as well, as their litany of similar failures has not gone unnoticed," Ms. Foxx said in a statement.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, said all three presidents should leave their posts. "You cannot call for the genocide of Jews, the genocide of any group of people, and not say that that's harassment," she told Fox News.

And Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, denounced the university leaders at the National Menorah Lighting in Washington.

"Seeing the presidents of some of our most elite universities literally unable to denounce calling for the genocide of Jews as antisemitic — that lack of moral clarity is simply unacceptable," said Mr. Emhoff, who is Jewish.

For Ms. Magill, pressure has been building within Penn's community, too. The advisory board at Wharton, Penn's business school, told Ms. Magill in a letter this week that "the university requires new leadership with immediate effect."

And the hedge fund manager Ross L. Stevens said that he would pull back a donation, worth approximately $100 million, to fund the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance.

"Absent a change in leadership and values at Penn in the very near future," he plans to rescind shares in Stone Ridge Holdings Group, he said in an email to his staff on Thursday.

"Mr. Stevens and Stone Ridge are appalled by the university's stance on antisemitism on campus," lawyers for Mr. Stevens wrote in a separate letter to the university's general counsel informing her of his decision.

During an emergency meeting by telephone on Thursday, Penn's board of trustees did not take a vote on whether to remove Ms. Magill, who had apologized earlier for her testimony. Instead, they pressed Ms. Magill and other leaders to express the university's values with greater clarity. University officials did not respond to requests for interviews.

Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a nonvoting member of Penn's board, said on Thursday evening that he had urged the board to decide whether Ms. Magill's testimony reflected the university's values.

"I expect they'll be meeting again in the coming days, and I expect them to carefully weigh that question," he said, speaking to reporters after a visit to Penn Hillel, a Jewish campus group. "That's a question for them to answer, not me."

He said that Jewish students at Hillel told him that they did not feel support from the administration. Some of them said they did not feel supported by their professors, either, he said.

At M.I.T., the governing board issued a strong endorsement of Dr. Kornbluth's leadership.

"She has done excellent work in leading our community, including in addressing antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of hate," the board said in a statement sent to all the university's students, faculty and staff. "She has our full and unreserved support."

Dr. Gay of Harvard issued a clarification on Wednesday: "Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account."

But David Wolpe, a prominent rabbi, said the problems at Harvard ran deep and he resigned on Thursday from Harvard's antisemitism advisory committee, formed after the Oct. 7 attack.

Rabbi Wolpe praised Dr. Gay as a "kind and thoughtful person," in a social media post, and said most students were not prosecuting an ideological agenda. But he said that antisemitism was so entrenched that he did not think he could make the kind of difference he had hoped for.

"Part of the problem is a simple herd mentality — people screaming slogans whose meaning and implication they know nothing of, or not wishing to be disliked by taking an unpopular position," he wrote.

[simpleSimon]

Their congressional testimony was not their best moment.  I think Gay at Harvard and Kornbluth at M.I.T. are safe, but it's difficult to see Magill at Penn surviving this furor.  Unlike the other two, she is not just under fire from politicos, the press, and random people; she is now under fire internally (from the Wharton School) and from a donor pledging $100 million.  With that kind of money on the line any leader is expendable and would be expected to step down to help rehab the school's tarnished reputation.  People want a fresh start to help move past this episode.  It is a shame; she has only been in office one year.  She has an impressive resume https://president.upenn.edu/meet-president. 

I am surprised she was not more politically tuned in and savvy during her testimony.

[simpleSimon]

UPenn President Liz Magill under fire over her testimony on antisemitism: 'An utter disgrace'
by Matt Egan

The growing chorus of donors, politicians, business leaders and other prominent figures calling for the immediate ouster of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill has reached a crescendo after her disastrous testimony at a House hearing earlier this week.

During Tuesday's House hearing, Magill, along with the presidents of Harvard and MIT, did not explicitly say that calling for the genocide of Jews would necessarily violate their code of conduct on bullying or harassment. Instead, they explained it would depend on the circumstances and conduct.

Magill had already been under fire prior to Tuesday's hearing after multiple incidents of antisemitism on campus in recent months – and what critics have said was a tepid response to those incidents.

After the fallout from Tuesday's hearing, Magill attempted to clarify her message on Wednesday, posting a video on X in which she said she should have focused on the "irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate."

Magill said Wednesday that Penn's policies "need to be clarified and evaluated," adding that in her view: "It would be harassment or intimidation."

But Penn's stakeholders were unsatisfied. Here is who is calling for Magill to resign:

Six Republican members of Congress are calling for Penn's board of trustees to fire Magill.

"President Magill's testimony is a clear reflection of the pervasive moral and educational failures prevalent at your university and other premier universities across the country," the Republican lawmakers said in the letter. "Her actions in front of Congress were an embarrassment to the university, its student body and its vast network of proud alumni."

The letter, signed by Reps. Guy Reschenthaler, Dan Meuser, Mike Kelly, John Joyce, Lloyd Smucker and Brian Fitzpatrick, described Magill's testimony as an "utter disgrace" to Pennsylvania and the nation.

"We respectfully call on you to relieve President Magill of her duties as president to protect the lives of Jewish American students at the University of Pennsylvania," the lawmakers said.

Former US Ambassador Jon Huntsman Thursday night called on Penn's board of trustees to remove Magill.

"Let's make this great institution shine once again," Huntsman said in a statement shared exclusively with CNN on Thursday evening. "We are anchored to the past until the trustees step up and completely cut ties with current leadership. Full stop."

Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, was a 1987 graduate and former UPenn trustee. In October, he blasted Penn's response to antisemitism on campus and promised to halt his family's donations to the university. The Huntsman family has been such prominent supporters of UPenn that the Huntsman name is on the main Wharton School building.

Now, Huntsman is going further, calling for a complete leadership change.

"At this point it's not even debatable," Huntsman said. "Just a simple IQ test."

Stone Ridge Holdings CEO Ross Stevens, a major donor to Penn, sent a letter on Thursday to Penn threatening to take steps that would cost the Ivy League school approximately $100 million if Magill stays on as president.

Stevens, a Penn alum and CEO of Stone Ridge Holdings, argues he has clear grounds to rescind $100 million worth of shares in his company that are currently held by Penn. He specifically cites Magill's disastrous testimony before Congress earlier this week.

"Absent a change in leadership and values at Penn in the very near future, I plan to rescind Penn's Stone Ridge shares to help prevent any further reputational and other damage to Stone Ridge as a result of our relationship with Penn and Liz Magill," Stevens said in a note to his employees on Thursday obtained by CNN.

The Wharton Board of Advisors, comprised of a powerful group of business leaders, including NFL owner Josh Harris, former Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky, Related Companies CEO Jeff Blau, Blackstone exec David Blitzer and BET CEO Scott Mills, has called for Magill's immediate ouster.

"As a result of the University leadership's stated beliefs and collective failure to act, our Board respectfully suggests to you and the Board of Trustees that the University requires new leadership with immediate effect," the Wharton Board of Advisors wrote in a letter sent directly to Magill.

The letter, which appears to have been sent Wednesday, specifically cites Magill's testimony.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, called the testimony "catastrophic and clarifying" and said Magill's attempt to clean-up her testimony "looked like a hostage video, like she was speaking under duress."

"I understand why the governor of Pennsylvania and so many of the trustees don't have confidence in her. I don't have confidence anymore that Penn is capable, under this leadership, of getting it right," Greenblatt told CNN's Kate Bolduan, adding that he has spoken with Magill.

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Thursday said she agrees with calls for the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania to resign, arguing they are "failing in the worst way."

"Their statements were abhorrent," Gillibrand told Fox News, referring to Tuesday's hearing in the House. "Trying to contextualize what constitutes harassment? Jewish students are terrified on these campuses."

[secundem_artem]

It's amazing that a group of students, absolutely, completely, and utterly certain in the righteousness of their beliefs, can bring down a president and cost a university a 9 figure donation.

[Ruralguy]

During the days of Title IX furor, many schools developed policies that included a full investigative process, a hearing, and now also ability to cross-examine witnesses. Many schools then also had discriminatory behavior fall under the same process. The reason I bring this up is that schools then also learned to be very careful about naming any person as victim or a perpetrator. They learned to be very general in saying that various claims would be "handled by the process." To me, it seems that is  what most of them were doing at this hearing, but they were not handling it well. It reminds of the answer Michael Dukakis gave at a debate in 1988 when someone questioned him about what he would do with a criminal who (hypothetically!) raped his wife. He just gave a rote answer about the process. Its not that it was "wrong" then or "wrong" now, but there's a difference between technically correct and right in the moment. Its better to take a two pronged approach and say something like "Of course any act of antisemitism is horrendous and I would never tolerate such acts. However, when someone is accused of something , we have to investigate it thoroughly, otherwise there's too much of a chance that an innocent person can be falsely charged of this or anything else, and we wouldn't want that."  They then could then go on to mention probable punishments for such acts.  But Stefanik and others were just too interested in playing "gotcha" to make even such a nuanced approach seem reasonable.

[simpleSimon]

During the days of Title IX furor, many schools developed policies that included a full investigative process, a hearing, and now also ability to cross-examine witnesses. Many schools then also had discriminatory behavior fall under the same process. The reason I bring this up is that schools then also learned to be very careful about naming any person as victim or a perpetrator. They learned to be very general in saying that various claims would be "handled by the process." To me, it seems that is  what most of them were doing at this hearing, but they were not handling it well. It reminds of the answer Michael Dukakis gave at a debate in 1988 when someone questioned him about what he would do with a criminal who (hypothetically!) raped his wife. He just gave a rote answer about the process. Its not that it was "wrong" then or "wrong" now, but there's a difference between technically correct and right in the moment. Its better to take a two pronged approach and say something like "Of course any act of antisemitism is horrendous and I would never tolerate such acts. However, when someone is accused of something , we have to investigate it thoroughly, otherwise there's too much of a chance that an innocent person can be falsely charged of this or anything else, and we wouldn't want that."  They then could then go on to mention probable punishments for such acts.  But Stefanik and others were just too interested in playing "gotcha" to make even such a nuanced approach seem reasonable.

Agreed. Most public congressional hearings of this sort are entirely performative.  I decline to believe people like Stefanik are losing sleep over anything happening on college campuses.  The presidents should have been expecting these predictable gotcha questions and been ready with savvy answers that would have resonated with the public.  Instead they hid behind canned legalese answers and it backfired spectacularly.  The failure here is not just on the part of the presidents but also on the part of their communications and public relations staff whom should have prepared them with mock Q&A sessions.  It may sound cynical but this is precisely why you have those communication offices/staff in place.

Magill really should have known (and performed) better on such a public stage.  They all should have.

[marshwiggle]

Universities Face Congressional Inquiry and Angry Donors Over Handling of Antisemitism
By Alan Blinder, Anemona Hartocollis and Stephanie Saul

Harvard, M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday faced threats from donors, demands that their presidents resign and a congressional investigation as repercussions mounted over the universities' responses to antisemitism on campus.

At Penn, university trustees discussed the future of Elizabeth Magill, its president, whose congressional testimony on Tuesday set off a furor when she dodged the question of whether she would discipline students for calling for the genocide of Jews.

One wonders if she would have been as non-committal if there were students calling for the genocide of Muslims, (or various other groups, for that matter).

[Ruralguy]

They did a very poor job of parsing out the difference between the act itself (with no particular "perp" attached), which is always reprehensible, and "the process" of investigating such acts and punishing those responsible.

Also, lets be honest, they were probably deathly afraid of stepping into Mideast politics.

[Langue_doc]

Harvard President Apologizes for Congressional Testimony on Antisemitism
The president, Claudine Gay, told the campus newspaper that she "should have had the presence of mind" to answer differently.

Here's the article:

Harvard's president apologized for her testimony before Congress about how she responded to antisemitism on campus — another sign that the controversy over her remarks and similar comments by the presidents of M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania was not going away.

"I am sorry," Claudine Gay, Harvard's president, said in an interview that the campus newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, published on Friday. "Words matter."

"When words amplify distress and pain, I don't know how you could feel anything but regret," she said.

The interview came as Dr. Gay, along with Elizabeth Magill of Penn and Sally Kornbluth of M.I.T., faced a storm of repercussions from the hearing, including a demand from more than 70 members of Congress — all of them Republicans, except for three Democrats — that they resign.

Their testimony "showed a complete absence of moral clarity," the lawmakers said. They added that the testimony "illuminated the problematic double standards and dehumanization of the Jewish communities" fostered by the presidents, and said all three should leave their jobs.

Asked during Tuesday's hearing whether urging the genocide of the Jewish people amounted to defying Harvard policies against bullying and harassment, Dr. Gay replied, "It can be, depending on the context."

Dr. Gay said in the interview that she had become "caught up" in a volley of questions on Tuesday from Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, and "should have had the presence of mind" during the exchange to "return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard and will never go unchallenged."

Ms. Magill has drawn some of the sharpest criticism for her testimony, with influential donors and alumni pressing for her ouster from Penn. One contributor moved to rescind a gift worth roughly $100 million. Penn trustees, who met in emergency session on Thursday, were scheduled to meet again on Sunday evening.

But the uproar surrounding Dr. Gay has also been infused with debate over how universities handle racial issues.

Bill Ackman, a billionaire investor and Harvard alumnus, insisted on social media this week that the appointment of Dr. Gay was connected to the university's goals for diversity, equity and inclusion.

"Shrinking the pool of candidates based on required race, gender, and/or sexual orientation criteria is not the right approach to identifying the best leaders for our most prestigious universities," Mr. Ackman wrote in a post on X. "And it is also not good for those awarded the office of president who find themselves in a role that they would likely not have obtained were it not for a fat finger on the scale."

Harvard said it had no comment on Mr. Ackman's post. In her announcement last year about Dr. Gay's elevation to the role of president, Penny Pritzker, who led the presidential search committee, said more than 600 people had been nominated to lead Harvard. When Ms. Pritzker opened the search last year, she said that Harvard was seeking a person with, among other qualities, "a commitment to embracing diversity along many dimensions as a source of strength."

Ibram X. Kendi, the director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, argued Friday on X that it was "racist and sexist" to "assume superior White and male leaders earn their positions through merit, and inferior Black and woman leaders receive their positions due to identity."

Dr. Kendi added, "These ideas show up in times of crisis: The Black and woman leader is assumed to be the problem." He declined further comment.

Dr. Gay has offered no public signal that she is considering resigning, and there has been no indication that she is facing as grave a revolt as Ms. Magill is at Penn. The fallout from Dr. Gay's testimony has nevertheless been conspicuous, including Rabbi David Wolpe's resignation on Thursday from the antisemitism advisory committee that Harvard formed after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Rabbi Wolpe said in an interview on Friday that he had been uncomfortable being perceived as the "voice of the Jewish community" on the panel.

"I was left with a job that had a lot of accountability and no authority," he said, noting that he felt he could still "be a force for good" by meeting with students in his capacity as a visiting scholar at the Harvard Divinity School.

In a series of posts on X announcing his resignation, Rabbi Wolpe had described Dr. Gay as a "kind and thoughtful person," but said he had concluded that combating Harvard's troubles was "the work of more than a committee or a single university."

Rabbi Wolpe added: "It is not going to be changed by hiring or firing a single person, or posting on X, or yelling at people who don't post as you wish when you wish, as though posting is the summation of one's moral character. This is the task of educating a generation, and also a vast unlearning."

Dr. Gay said in a statement that the rabbi had "deepened my and our community's understanding of the unacceptable presence of antisemitism here at Harvard." She added that she was "committed to ensuring no member of our Jewish community faces this hate in any form."

But Rabbi Wolpe said there had been immense damage to the credibility of some universities that had been pulled into intense debate since October. Parents, he said in the interview on Friday, were calling and saying they no longer dreamed of sending their children to schools like Harvard and Penn.

"When I was growing up, such a thing was unthinkable," Rabbi Wolpe said.

[simpleSimon]

One Law Firm Prepared Both Penn and Harvard for Hearing on Antisemitism
By Lauren Hirsch

At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, the leaders of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave carefully worded — and seemingly evasive — answers to the question of whether they would discipline students who called for the genocide of Jews. The intense criticism that followed led many to wonder: Who had prepared them for testimony?

It turns out that one of America's best known white-shoe law firms, WilmerHale, was intricately involved.

Two of the school presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard and Elizabeth Magill of Penn, prepared separately for the congressional testimony with teams from WilmerHale, according to two people familiar with the situation who asked not to be identified because the preparation process is confidential.

WilmerHale also had a meeting with M.I.T.'s president, Sally Kornbluth, one of the people said.

The firm, created by a merger in 2004 between Wilmer Cutler Pickering of Washington and Hale and Dorr of Boston, has offices across the United States, Europe and Asia. It is best known in the legal industry for defending clients facing government investigations and enforcement. Among its best-known clients have been the oil giant BP PLC, which the law firm represented during government investigations after an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and President Richard Nixon, whom it represented in his fight with Congress over the Watergate tapes.

It also has an extensive practice working with universities.

Lawyers for WilmerHale sat in the front row at the hearing on Tuesday. They included Alyssa DaCunha, who leads the firm's congressional investigations and crisis management practices, and Felicia Ellsworth, the vice chair of the firm's litigation and controversy department.

Both Ms. DaCunha and Ms. Ellsworth were involved in preparing the presidents of Harvard and Penn for the hearings, one person familiar with the process said. The schools each independently hired WilmerHale, and the firm created separate teams to prepare each president. The firm already had ties with all three schools.

A spokeswoman for the firm declined to comment.

Preparing for congressional testimony involves blending legal caution with political savvy and common sense, legal experts say. Lawyers typically advise those testifying to be mindful of the law but to also consider headlines that could come out of the hearing. That can be a difficult task after hours of pointed questioning.

"I got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures," Dr. Gay told The Harvard Crimson.

Steven Davidoff Solomon, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, said that the college presidents appeared to be "prepared to give answers in the court — and not a public forum."

But the responsibility of university presidents, Mr. Solomon said, is "not to give legal answers, it's to give the vision of the university."

In one of the most charged moments of testimony, Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, asked the three presidents whether calls for violence against Jews would violate their school's code of conduct.

Dr. Kornbluth of M.I.T. responded that they might, "if targeted at individuals, not making public statements." Ms. Magill of Penn said a call for violence against Jews could be considered a violation "if it is directed and severe, pervasive, it is harassment." When pushed to answer yes or no, she responded, "it is a context-dependent decision." And Dr. Gay of Harvard responded, "It can be, depending on the context."

The responses immediately set off a flurry of criticism. A House committee opened an investigation into the three institutions, and a donor clawed back a large donation to Penn. A day after Wharton's board of advisers called for Ms. Magill's resignation, Wharton's undergraduate executive board issued a statement on Friday in support of the change in leadership.

Critics said the answers appeared to be too focused on whether conduct would violate the First Amendment.

"Once they were in that box, I think they stuck with their preparation," said Edward Rock, a professor of law at New York University. "That's why they came across so wooden. And then, afterward, they realized it was a terrible answer."

Dr. Gay of Harvard issued a clarification on Wednesday: "Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group, are vile. They have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account."

Ms. Magill of Penn said in a video, "I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate."

[Parasaurolophus]

Have any students actually been calling for a genocide of Jews?

Or are the free speech crybabies just crying when they hear speech that is free?

[Ruralguy]

Though I could see how someone might interpret a political statement that way, I could also see how someone might not have actually meant that statement in that way (as an example, the "river to see the sea" establishment of a Palestinian state). Other than that, I don't know as though I have actually heard of anyone specifically calling for the genocide of Jews at these schools, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Not that I want to help Stefanik out, but i do believe she was putting it out there as a hypothetical (though maybe with some snark, so as to suggest it kinda sort has happened).

[waterboy]

This is why I keep my opinions limited to my class content and professional duties, which (thankfully) have nothing to do with these type of current events.  No one is entitled to mine opinion on anything else...and as NOT an admin, I can get away with that.  What a mess.

[simpleSimon]

Penn's President Resigns, After Her Responses About Antisemitism
By Stephanie Saul

The president of the University of Pennsylvania, M. Elizabeth Magill, resigned on Saturday, four days after her testimony at a congressional hearing in which she seemed to evade the question of whether students who called for the genocide of Jews should be disciplined.

The announcement, in an email sent to the Penn community from Scott L. Bok, the chairman of the board of trustees, followed months of intense pressure from Jewish students, alumni and donors, who claimed that she had not taken their concerns about antisemitism on campus seriously.

Ms. Magill is the first president of a major university to leave office as part of the fallout from the protests that have engulfed campuses since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

With students deeply divided over the war, university presidents have tried to balance pro-Palestinian protesters' right to free speech with concerns that some of their language has been antisemitic.

Ms. Magill, a lawyer, came to Penn in 2022 as a champion of free speech, but she ultimately found herself undone by trying to follow that legal principle.

In the congressional hearing on Tuesday, she gave lawyerly responses to a complicated question involving speech. Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, said that students had chanted support for intifada, an Arabic word that means uprising and that many Jews hear as a call for violence against them.

After parrying back and forth, Ms. Stefanik asked, "Calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?"

Ms. Magill replied, "If it is directed and severe, pervasive, it is harassment."

Ms. Stefanik responded, "So the answer is yes."

Ms. Magill said, "It is a context-dependent decision, congresswoman."

Ms. Stefanik exclaimed: "That's your testimony today? Calling for the genocide of Jews is depending upon the context?"

Two other university presidents — Claudine Gay of Harvard and Sally Kornbluth of M.I.T. — testified with Ms. Magill and made similar statements. Free-speech scholars said that they were legally correct.

But Ms. Magill's remarks failed to meet a moment of moral clarity for many of the university's Jewish students, faculty and alumni, and set off a wave of criticism that included the state's Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, and its two Democratic U.S. senators, John Fetterman and Bob Casey. Even the White House weighed in.

Ms. Magill apologized Wednesday evening for her testimony.

"In that moment, I was focused on our university's longstanding policies aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable," she said in a video. "I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate. It's evil — plain and simple."

She added, "In my view, it would be harassment or intimidation."

In a response to her apology, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a campus free speech group, said in a statement that it would be a mistake for Penn to revise its speech policies in response to the congressional hearing.

Ms. Magill had already been embattled for months, before the Oct. 7 attacks.

In the summer, donors asked her to cancel a planned Palestinian literary conference on campus. Ms. Magill, citing free speech, said that it would go on as planned in September...

[dismalist]

The three university presidents are bosses of private universities. The First Amendment is irrelevant. As such, they were correctly asked about their schools' policies. They all waffled about what they were told the First Amendment implies. President Gay acknowledged as much. [The lawyers were clearly fools.]

My view is that these women are extremely adept at weaving with the trustees, the faculty, the administration, and students, all the interest groups within universities. They are highly skilled at that! What they have no competence with is explaining things to a broader audience. Their testimony has been seen by many millions of people on Youtube, the most ever for a Congressional hearing.

A solution is self-evident. All that private universities have to do is put speech restrictions into their policies, if they so choose. Harvard has the least free speech in the US of A, according to a FIRE survey. Competition among universities will solve the problem of people being offended or denied their [private, local] rights. This of course would cost Penn, e.g. $100 million, which is why they don't want to be honest.